Time we got tough over bridge traffic

Sat Nav

Published:07:00Wednesday 04 February 2015

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I follow with interest the continuing saga regarding West Bradford Bridge.

Having been a school minibus driver for many long years before my retirement, regularly using all the Ribble and Hodder Valley roads and bridges, I saw the succession of scrapes, dislodged topping stones, damage etc. which befell the West Bradford Bridge – caused not only by oversized lorries, but also by careless farm traffic such as tractors with trailers.

A while back, I happened to be driving through York Village on the road down to Whalley, which ends with that notorious tight double elbow bend.

In York Village is a large yellow sign clearly saying “No long vehicles. Do not follow Sat Nav. Severe bend.”

The other day I deliberately went down to the cement works to see if any of our “responsible for road signs” officials had used some brains to put up a like-sign approaching West Bradford Bridge. No chance! All one can see is a very small and not very prominent blue sign saying “unsuitable for long vehicles”. How useless is that and hardly visible on a dark night. And nothing at all up at the link road roundabout where drivers could easily change route without getting as far as the cement works entrance which would be the only possible spot to turn around.

Time someone got tough and put up large yellow signs forbidding trucks over a certain width and length to use the bridge.

And how ridiculous and destructive is any idea of re-building, altering or moving up-stream this lovely old bridge.

This is a beautiful rural area of nature and farms – loved by HM The Queen herself.

These sat nav things are just robots, no brains, no thinking powers and devoid of practical knowledge of the real existing scene, with the inability to make practical decisions. Human beings hopefully do have all those powers and are able to overide robot dictations!